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Susan Cowsill may be known as the member of a famous musical family, her tenure with the Continental Drifters, her "Covered In Vinyl" series, and her solo career, and for her family's 1967 Billboard chart-topper, "The Rain, the Park, and Other Things." But although she chose not to play that iconic tune at her livestream concert on Wednesday afternoon, it would have been an apropos title for the event. Susan and her husband, drummer Russ Broussard, braved wind and rain with their band for a performance from the front porch of a friend's home in Algiers Point. Across the street, a crowd assembled to cheer them on from McDonogh Memorial Park. The weather, however, was not the only challenge for Susan and Russ. They awoke Wednesday to the sound of a vehicle hurtling down their street at 50 mph and crashing into Susan's parked truck. The truck, which she had named "Forrest," was left totalled and wrapped around a tree. Undeterred, Susan and Russ carried on with the show, which they had, ironically, billed as the
"Safety First" concert, part of Rick and Barbara Trolsen's "Wednesdays on the Porch" series. "We are here to play by the rules," said Susan. They were joined by Rene Coman, Alex McMurray, Graham Robinson and Daria Dzurik (of Daria and the Hip Drops). With the exception of Susan, all the musicians wore face masks or bandanas for protection. "Alex looks like he's about to rob a stagecoach," said one online viewer. Bassist Rene Coman waved a six-foot pole to ensure no one encroached upon his circle of well-being.
For Russ, the rain was an apt metaphor for the feeling of playing music again "after a two-month drought in the desert. It was unfamiliar, familiar, and intoxicating all in the same moment. It felt amazing to play with others and with an audience, which I consider a member of the band. This has been the longest I've gone without playing a gig since 1987." As the band huddled beneath the porch roof to dodge the elements, Susan bravely leaned against a planter by her front steps. Fittingly, she kicked things off with "Rain Song," the first cut from her 1999 Continental Drifters album Vermilion.
Rain, rain, go away/
I'm doin' fine as long as you stay/
Locked up inside your cloud of grey.
Cowsill and the band continued with a set that included more songs from the Continental Drifters catalog, two new originals, and an assortment of Woodstock-era classics. Her shows always bring about feelings of nostalgia, and she enjoys covering great songwriters from generations past. Nonetheless, Susan is young at heart, and her voice hasn't really changed over the years. It's pitch-perfect, authentic, and relatable. Onstage, she is laid-back and whimsical, and her shows have a campfire feel. Judging from her lyrics and song choices, she is a person very in touch with her inner child. One of her Continental Drifters songs contained these lyrics:
Cause I don't like it being stuck down here/
It's dark and it's scary and there isn't any air/
And I feel like I weigh the weight of the world/
But I don't because you know I'm still a little girl.
Over the course of the show, Susan and the band covered tunes by Joni Mitchell, the Sandpipers, Ernie K-Doe, the Kingston Trio, and Melanie Safka. Their version of "Harvest Moon," by Neil Young, featured tasty solos from McMurray on electric guitar and Dzurik on steel pans. It was met by enthusiastic applause from the spectators scattered across the park, as well as from a dozen cars parked nearby holding audience members.
Before singing "Real Life," from her 2010 Lighthouse album, Susan explained that it was a song that she wrote "because I couldn't finish writing another song, in the stress of the pressure of the professionalism that was expected of me at the time. It was too much, so I resorted to writing a different song that easily came to me all by itself." The lyrics are relevant to the current state of affairs:
It's the end of the show/
But I can come back whenever I please/
Because sometimes real life can be way too much grown-up for me/
And sometimes real life can be a beautiful place that ya never ever want to leave.
I have much too much time on my hands.
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